


grip him by the shoulders (and say you've always loved him).

by Prettything_uglylie



Series: yes i'm back on my criminal minds bullshit [7]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Accidental Flirting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Confused For A Couple Trope, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:00:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26133076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: 5 Times They Were Confused As A Couple (And The One Time They Were More.)
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Series: yes i'm back on my criminal minds bullshit [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599058
Comments: 19
Kudos: 135





	1. 1. the disturbed boy.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is, I just...had inspiration?  
> I hope you like this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this came out a little shorter than intended but i was on a bit of a spiral for them and i hope you like it!

**i. the disturbed boy.**

Nathan Harris is a boy made of sharp cheekbones, deathly pale skin, and an abnormally large crush on Doctor Spencer Reid - and Morgan gets it: Reid is a pretty boy whos wide doe brown eyes not only have a sweet honey trickle of kind innocence but of sparked intelligence that some days feels like a fire Morgan is caught in but on other days, feels like a bonfire like the ones his father would bring their family to when he was younger. 

Reid is always _beautiful_ \- some days, Morgan just wonders if it's a beauty worth dying for. (Most days, his thoughts don't waver when he says yes.) 

So, yeah, he gets Nathan's crush on Reid - what he doesn't get is Reid's pure devotion to this kid. 

The kid shows all signs of a budding sexual sadist - it makes Morgan question his thoughts of the term _crush_ but there is something in the kid's eyes when he looks at Reid, ~~_a hunger_~~ , that lacks the serrated edge when he thinks of it as a crush - and he doesn't know why Reid has yet to completely derail himself from this case. 

Oh, right, it is because for every bit Reid is brilliant, he is also impulsive and insane and its another beautiful part of the fire that Morgan wants to cup in his hands and cherish forever. _Does Reid really think he can save this kid?_

They show up at his house though. It's a nice house in middle-class suburbia that makes a cold chill run up his spine but Reid doesn't flinch - Reid is interesting like that, he thinks, the boy is scared of the dark but looked a man like Phillip Dowd in the eye before shooting him - and he knocks on the door in three clean knocks that feel like suburbia itself breathed her bosom's last gasps into Reid's palms and not for the first time, Morgan wonders where exactly in Las Vegas Reid grew up. 

When Reid introduces them to Sarah Harris, a scrawny, willowy nurse, he doesn't introduce himself as 'doctor' and his voice is quiet when he says 'FBI'. Morgan suspects this is from years of sheltering his own mother from the horrors of their job but he doesn't ask - after all, you aren't supposed to profile each other. 

They enter the boy's room and as Reid and Nathan talk, he is reading what the boy had been writing.

_Whores...blood...worthless._

"Who is he anyway?" Nathan demands and it is the most lively that he's heard the teen ever sound until Reid answers, "This is my partner, SSA Derek Morgan." 

Nathan's face, Morgan thinks, sinks and if possible, goes even paler than he already is. Morgan has the sensibility to feel nervous about his pale state. 

"Figures," he hears the boy murmur, "Only guy I've ever had a crush on and he's taken." 

Reid doesn't seem to hear him, instead moving towards Nathan's laptop and by the way his hazel eyes flicker over the page, Morgan can only assume that he is, indeed, reading the younger boy's work but by the crinkle of his nose and the frown piercing his face, he could guess the young doctor doesn't approve of the material written. 

While he watches Reid read, he knows Nathan does as well - seeking approval out almost desperately but the agent mostly just looks troubled before he looks at Nathan, clearly uncomfortable. "Nathan, could you come with us?" 

On the ride back to the station, as he watches the silhouettes of the streetlights pour through the windshield to draw glorious shapes over Spencer Reid's pretty face, he can't stop thinking about how Nathan thought they were a couple. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just recently rewatched Sex, Birth, Death and wow, i can't believe anton yelchin is dead, it hurts so bad. 
> 
> anyways, i hope you liked this! there will be more of it!


	2. ii. the ill mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these are all gonna be a little short but they add together to have a cohesive story and I hope you like it!

**ii. the ill mother.**

Though Nathan harris can be pinpointed as the first amongst them both to confuse them as a couple, he is not the first.

By all technicalities, the first is, as Spencer Reid would tell the audience, the woman who knows her own son inside and out to the point where she had known before her Spencer had even had an inkling. Diana Reid, despite her illness, could be credited to many as the smartest person they've ever met and her son, a genius by all definitions, would agree with them wholeheartedly. 

Somewhere in his letters, somewhere before Elle Greenaway is shot but after Phillip Dowd, he begins to write letters more frequently detailing a man named Derek Morgan throughout their "adventures". Diana reads every line, every word roughly a dozen times as she runs her worn, love-crumpled hands over the papers - her son writes her letters like they are essays and it makes her fond - as she cradles them to her chest. 

She has not seen her boy talk, or write, this happily of another man since his ex-boyfriend Ethan and she doesn't truly believe she's ever seen this passion with anyone before. 

She hopes he knows - she hopes he sees this joy in himself as he writes, hopes he recognizes the fluttering nervous fondness as the love she would read to him in Shakespeare plays when he was a baby. Diana knows her Spencer though, knows her son will deny it as long as he safely can. 

The mother writes back a letter that concludes with _'come visit me and bring your boyfriend, Derek.'_

It isn't a mistake - the mother always knows. 

she meets Derek Morgan, it's in a case where Spencer stresses too much and she decides Derek is good for her son as she watches his big hand massage the back of her son's too-scrawny neck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like it! Kudos and comments are appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this!  
> Another chapter upcoming!  
> Kudos and comments make me Thrive.


End file.
